Language Policy Regulations at Catalan Universities: A Content Analysis of Their Narrative

Abstract

Language policy documents in Catalan universities tend to emphasise the idea that the national language, Catalan, has to be protected and promoted at university, while also acknowledging that languages of wider communication (mainly English, but also Spanish) play an important role within the university context. However, university language policy documents in Catalonia additionally give a significant amount of attention to the importance of ensuring a good level of competence across different languages, particularly English. This reveals that, more often than not, the debate around language(s) in higher education is seen essentially as a problem of linguistic competence. Such a focus on competence, however, can obscure the ambivalent character of the role of language(s) in the Catalan higher education system. The narrative approach to content analysis we propose attempts to shed light on this potentially shadowed issue. In short, the chapter analyses how language and language-related issues are depicted in the language policy documents of the public universities in Catalonia, and how these documents handle the sociolinguistic complexities of the Catalan system of higher education.